Experimenting with Great Warpath

[EverNoob]

I couldn't resist being the first to post here

The intention of this post is to stimulate discussion about Iroquois strategy.

So I decided to start with the Iroquois. Played a quick preliminary test game to learn the game mechanics, and then restarted a real game. This is a report on that 2nd game. Since we're all learning the game, I decided ppl could learn from my mistakes!

Civ: Iroquois (Hiawatha)
Map: Continents, standard size
Difficulty: Prince
Speed: Standard

I included my initial and final (so far) savegame.

Overall Strategy:

The Iroquois seem like a REX (Rapid EXpansion) type of civ. The Great Warpath trait makes it so forests and jungles *in friendly territory* are considered roads. This saves both gold AND time. It saves gold because you don't have to build as many roads and therefore pay their upkeep. And it saves time since you devote fewer workers to road building.

This combined with the Mohawk Warrior's bonus in forests and jungles, makes the Iroquois a REXing yet defensive civ.

Therefore early game strategy was to expand quickly, block off other civ's expansion, and grab as many resources as I could. That means I would end up with alot of small cities.

Economic focus was on production and gold to train settlers, pay for tiles and grab more resources.

I figured by midgame I would convert to a builder strategy once I had taken up all the land I needed.

Actual Game:

Build order:

Scout
Warrior
Granary
Settler
Worker
Worker
Archer
Settler​

Social Policy Order:

Liberty
Collective Rule
Republic
​

Early Tech Order:

Pottery
Animal Husbandry
Trapping
Calendar
Mining
Bronze Working
Archery
Iron Working
The Wheel
Writing​

Synopsis:

The early game went as planned. Expansion went smoothly and I grabbed alot of resources! So it seems my initial game strategy was sound.

By midgame however, I stalled economically I put too much focus on gold and not enough on culture. My social policies couldn't keep up with my expansion. Eventually I hit the happiness cap and couldn't build any more cities or grow any more population.

In hindsight my social policies should have been: Liberty-Citizenship-Meritocracy. Instead of Liberty-Collective Rule-Republic. I should have built more cultural buildings to advance my social policies. Ideally I should've gone for Piety-Organized Religion-Theocracy as well. That would've have provided me with more happiness to support my expansion.

Another alternative would have been to build up military sooner, and puppet Persian or Indian cities for their happiness resources.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

You shouldn't do a granary before a settler. You're not getting any use from it while the settler builds. Typically I've found that I have enough time to buy at least one building by the time my first settler gets out.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Also, putting your compulsions aside, I'm not sure this should be in the strategy forums. It's not very strategy oriented and in the end you make it sound like your strategy tanked.

 

[DaviddesJ]

With respect, I also suggest a mod move this out of Strategy Articles so we can keep this forum very clean for its intended purpose.

 

[EverNoob]

You're right, this is more of a discussion thread than an article. My bad!

 

[Rittmeyer]

Strategy would involve the power of the longhouse making the already nice lumbermills even better...

 

[Civsassin]

I think the Iroquois are one of the most interesting civs to play because of their production potential and passive trait. You definitely want to make sure you have plenty of food available, so you can leverage the potential production without starving yourself.

A difficulty when playing the Iroquios is resisting the temptatioin to develop forest tiles to gain food or temporary production. Wait until the midgame when you can develop the forest tiles without removing the forests. As a rule, don't remove forest tiles.

During the expansion phase, look for other civs that have populated forested areas, and focus your invasions on those civs. Forests are your bread and butter, so to speak, as the Iroquois, so the ony way you can gain the advantage is to leverage your strenghths - forests.

Forests will save you a bunch of money because you don't have to build roads on those tiles. Each forest tile that you would normally develop will save you 1 gold, which adds up.